[Taf]

I bought my '95 Skoda in 2000 for £5k with 5k on the clock. 22 years later, with 47k on the clock, she's had:

A set of tyres as the side walls cracked with age
A new exhaust
A new battery
An exchange alternator (cheaper than a strip and rebuild)
A starter motor brush exchange
A complete change of front brake system (pads, disk and calipers)

I went looking for a replacement, but, as a couple of mates found, the price of second-hand cars has gone ballistic due to the pandemic and oil crisis. Small, economical cars have jumped the most. One found a few he liked in the morning, came back in the evening to find they all had jumped around £1.5k.

A big reseller here also lifted the prices of small cars by £1.5k, but was offering £1k over market value for any part-ex. If you part-exed, he still got £500 extra. No part-ex and he gained £1.5k.

My car cannot use E10, so I have to pay extra for E5 (which is getting hard to find) but with her tiny annual mileage, that only adds a couple of quid to the fuel bill (so far). I only need to fill up about 4 times a year.